Targeting Keywords from the homepage

[onlinemediadirect]

I tend to focus on two or three main keywords to target from the homepage. In fact come to think of it from all pages.

Do you target up to 10 keywords of more from one page. Taking longer tail keywords into consideration.

Granted the limits to any phrase or keyword group.

[SEO5Team]

Hi Garry,

A focus on two or three main keywords on your page is perfectly appropriate, even for longer tail keywords. It may be recommended to use longer tailed keywords for pages on your site appropriate for such keywords. As well, it is recommended to put the keyword(s) as close to the beginning of each tag as possible. Keywords can be combined to create longer tail keywords, but only if they are relevant to each other; try to put two unrelated phrases together will look like spam. If your business is located in a certain area, using long tail keywords with location can help your results; with other keywords, your site can still rank for longer tail keyword due to natural relevancy. With a focus of more than three keywords, your tags will be bulky and read unnaturally.

[sichristie]

Definitely helps if you have good proximity of your keyword in title. A relevant Meta Desc helps with CTR only.

Just make sure that the content on the page is relevant to the title.

[onlinemediadirect]

My experience your main keyword must be the first keyword on the meta title or description.

Would you both go with that ?

[AlanBleiweiss]

Garry,

In my experience maximum opportunities come from assigning no more than two or at most three primary phrases per page, then including up to three or at most four very closely related additional phrases within the body.  Those additional phrases go to support the primary phrases mostly, however the total combination eventually leads to exponential long-tail opportunities that you don't need to figure out on your own if the content is really well written for the user.

Trying to get more than that in there almost always leads to topical dilution.

[RogersSEO]

I would target one specific keyword per page and just make sure the content on each page is valuable and targeted because that's what visitors want.

Just keep it natural and you will be surprised at the number of additional long-tail keywords each specific page will rank for.

On some of my older sites I would have approximately 80 pages each dedicated to a specific keyword.  Eventually, I would often rank for 16,000+ long-tail keywords (depending on the niche).  I didn't consciously go after those 16,000 keywords.  I just went after 80.  But Google found my specific content pages relevant for a lot more than just the initial 80 keywords.

Many of these long-tail keywords may only be used a few times each month, so it doesn't make sense to target them specifically.  However, if you write compelling content, the long tail keywords will follow, and so will the targeted traffic.